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Tallest U.S. man gets $25K sneakers from Reebok (PHOTOS)

Basketball coaches normally salivate at the idea of having a player over seven-feet tall. The bigger the better, right? Not for 7-foot-8 Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States. "I tried

And it was flat-out impossible for Vovkovinskiy, a Minnesota Timberwolves fan, to sit in the seats at Target Center to watch his favorite NBA team play. So last April, Minnesota did something memorable for its biggest fan and invited Vovkovinskiy to sit in a special suite that had been altered to fit his massive frame to watch the game.

Paul Robinson, a shoe technician at Reebok, measures a pair of shoes belonging to Igor Vovkovinskiy as part of a shoe fitting for Vovkovinskiy at Reebok headquarters, in Canton, Mass., May 3, 2012.(Photo: By Steven Senne, AP)

So after some encouragement from friends, he took to a Facebook campaign to raise the money. The response was so overwhelming that he quickly raised almost $40,000, but then he got another surprise.

Reebok came forward and told him they would create three pairs of custom-made sneakers for Vovkovinskiy, which he finally received on Thursday. The shoes, which are said to be valued at $25,000, were molded exactly for him after Reebok took imprints and precise scans of his feet. Each pair has the name "Igor" printed in bold letters on the bottom, and one pair even comes in Timberwolves colors.

Vovkovinskiy called the shoes "life-changing," and said they "feel like a cushion inside."

"It's an enormous opportunity now to start doing things I haven't been able to do," he said.